Archives for September, 2006

Since I’ve gone over a week without any blogging, I feel that I owe my readers an explanation. Basically, I’ve just been incredibly busy in the lab. I’ve had a lot of time on the NMR machines, and I’ve been trying to make the most of it. On top of that, and in addition to…

Yep, that’s what I was up to last night. I’ve added some useful content to the left-hand sidebar of the site. Specifically, I’ve listed a few recommended books that readers of my blog might enjoy, and I’ve also listed several worthy science-related causes for prospective donors. The causes come from a recent post on the…

This post doesn’t have anything to do with science, but I felt the need to pay tribute to former Texas Governor Ann Richards, who passed away Wednesday. Elected in 1990, Richards led a bold wave of progressive reforms statewide, capitalizing on the Democrats’ continued electoral support in Texas despite the state sliding further to the…

Since I reported yesterday on a letter in Science describing the current decline in funding of NIH (National Institutes of Health) R01 grants, several others have chimed in as well. PZ Myers of Pharyngula gave the post a mention, and Mike the Mad Biologist as well as Orac of Respectful Insolence gave their own detailed…

In a letter in last week’s issue of Science (subscription required), two scientists from the National Caucus of Basic Biomedical Science Chairs–H. George Mandel and Elliot S. Vesell–describe in detail the funding crisis currently plaguing American scientists. The authors demonstrate a shocking decrease over the last seven years in the allocation of NIH (National Institutes…

When I was a freshman in college, at Texas A&M University, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings I had two classes back-to-back in the same lecture hall. Because of a weird scheduling fluke, these classes were about 45 minutes apart, though. During that break, sometimes I would go eat breakfast, other times I would do something…

The Scientific Activist will be taking a break from Fantastical Fridays for a while, starting with last week. (Yes, I know, this post is a little late). Things have been pretty busy in the lab lately and that, combined with the fact that I haven’t had home internet access for over a month (until two…

Robert Trivers was the first to describe the theory of reciprocal altruism and Noam Chomsky is… well… Noam Chomsky is the man (not to be confused with The Man). What happens when you bring together in one room the evolutionary theorist who changed the way we think about cooperation and social interactions with the intellectual…

Student Pugwash USA (SPUSA), an organization that encourages the inclusion of social responsibility considerations in our scientific dialogue, has started a new blog called MindFull. The blog has already tackled a variety of issues from “ethical stem cells” to defense policy, and it should be an interesting source of information and commentary.